It is sad how we allow rude people to get away with selfish behavior and make life for difficult for everyone else. Doing so encourages rude people to be even more selfish and we get the kind of behavior you see discussed in the article.
Addressing the issues directly is often challenging. That is my guess on why we allow degenerate behavior to impose costs on others until it reaches epidemic proportions when we finally attempt to address it.
It also encourages people to isolate themselves in enclaves where people that share certain expectations of behavior can shut out others and deal with those that are at least somewhat considerate of whatever behaviors the group cares about.
Allowing the rudest people to abuse society degrades the public square and tears at the benefits that can strengthen the social contract. Sadly it seems to be a pretty dominate trait in our society these last few decades and it seems likely to just keep getting worse. Hopefully I am wrong.
It also encourages people to isolate themselves in
enclaves where people that share certain expectations
of behavior can shut out others and deal with those
that are at least somewhat considerate of whatever
behaviors the group cares about.
This. Yes. Hat tip.
It isn't even the slight bit humorous anymore how much of these kind of exclusionary tactics play out in those "communities" that cry gentrification at the slightest degree of outsider intrusion, into their "districts" where certain unspoken rules of law evasion, creative law-flouting and outright prejudicially illegal behavior are propped up by the ingroup [1] members.
This is precisely why I am not very empathetic to cries of gentrification, in places like SF.
With these communities, it is most often not a debate of economic displacement but one of selective self-imposed seclusion.
Simply put, they don't want you there not because you are economically displacing them and thereby a threat. They don't want you in their cafes, their bars, their parks and stores just because you are not like them.
I resist elaborating for it should resemble a rant.
I'm not so sure that self-imposed cultural isolation is such a bad thing, at least inherently. It seems like a potentially better way for global society to support an extremely wide range of cultural norms than for every set of norms to be distributed evenly and tons of effort spent futilely teaching people to be "tolerant."
A problem with social isolation of groups leads to tension between groups. It is very easy to demonize a group when you have no contact with anyone from that group.
Case in point: Gays in the US. Acceptance of gays an gay marriage has increased DRAMATICALLY over the last decade in the US. Why? It is thought because people are starting to know gay people. Gay people are coming out and becoming visible. When you find out your neighbor or coworker or friend or even child is gay, your views of gays change. Suddenly they aren't the demonized other. In 1993 22% of Americans report having a close friend or family member who is gay. Now? 65%.
I also think social isolation leads to radicalization. When you start feeling its US vs THEM. It also leads to a loss of personal freedoms. One isn't free to integrate into a culture that is hostile to them and they lose that freedom of choice of lifestyle.
Like it or not, the US is a multi ethnic multi racial multi cultural place. I think even the majorty of countries have minority populations.
I don't think isolation of cultures is a good thing for a society.
> A problem with social isolation of groups leads to tension between groups.
I don't know. It seems like having mutually exclusive social norms together leads to tension between groups. Obviously both happen, and history is filled with examples of both.
I'm not sure I accept that tolerance is too hard to teach, therefore we should allow people to avoid other cultures. I think many small issues is preferable to a few large ones, in this case.
I really don't think it's unreasonable or bad for someone to avoid other cultures. I think it's bad to be ignorant of other cultures, and certainly to be intolerant or bigoted, but I think it's perfectly reasonable to want to live and be around people who largely share your culture.
I don't disagree with that, but cultural isolation is a strong term with strong connotations for me.
I think history shows us that if it's easy for people to remain ignorant of others through cultural isolation, some subset will do so. I'm not against people carving out a cultural niche, but I think that the point we can use the word isolation to describe it, we have a problem. The problem isn't one direction, either. Cultural isolation can keep outsiders from understanding and tolerance as well, which leads to discrimination, which may lead to more isolation and reciprocated feelings towards the outside.
It's difficult to challenge also because it makes it even more difficult for the people who need help, and there will always be some number of rude people that squeak by too.
In the case of ESAs, every fix for this problem will be more work for people with service animals. The most popular fix I've heard of is a nationwide registry, but what kind of signup cost will there be? A service dog is already expensive, what if the additional signup is prohibitively expensive for those that really need it?
Another one I can think of is the disability pass I got the last time I went to a Disney theme park. The pass basically lets you wait like everyone else, just not in line (e.g. 100 minute wait for space mountain - sign up and just come back after 100 minutes to use the Fastpass line). It used to be a direct skip-to-the-Fastpass line, but it _seemed_ like it was abused too much so Disney changed the benefit, but not the way to get it. So the same rude people can still abuse it, but everyone else that needed it got screwed. Bonus points because people like me with no visible disability (wooohoo nerve damage in my legs) look like abusers to the average person.
Then there are the people that get pissed off that I would like to board a plane early because it's totally about me wanting overhead space for....the bag I checked... and it can't possibly be because I would like to minimize pain that drugs can't touch by not waiting in lines.
I don't think this is a particularly new problem. Some people just want all the nice things and have no respect for others.
It's been a while since I've been to Disney, but I don't see how that's any different than a fastpass. Would giving a fastpass be sufficient accommodation?
Agree completely. We saw a similar dynamic with the recent stepped up enforcement of the rules against blocking BART stairways and exits in the Bay Area [1]. When they finally took action against it, they had to use the pretense of safety. No one was willing to say,
"Look, we really don't want to look like a police state here, but there are about a trillion other places just a few steps away where you can sleep or beg, and where we will leave you the heck alone, so if you're unwilling to play well with passersby, we will have to physically move you."
Well when you have a government people telling them they are entitled to this, that, and oh yeah maybe that, its bound to filter into the common mindset. Follow it up with TV programs, internet sites, and the like, which on serve to reinforce the attitude.
You deserve high speed internet, you deserve a phone, you deserve pets, you deserve to take your emotional support llama with you... on and on and on... never do we hear, your rights do not supersede the rights and safety of others.
Like referring to morbid obesity which is getting too prevalent in societies across the world. Far too many of the morbid obese do not see themselves as such or refuse too. It should be treated the same as smoking and dogs crapping on planes; that morbidly obese person is more of a risk for your plane than a crapping dog.
Being a dog owner, having been raised with dogs and other animals, I really don't want to see them in restaurants, grocery stores, or my doctors office. Pet stores, fine. On a plane in a carry on under the seat fine, roaming the isles no. The airplane problem is far too many people lie and declare them service dogs, something that to a point is lawful and airlines are loathe to challenge passengers over fear of suits. There should definitely not be service animals other than dogs. Emotional support animals should not be accorded the same treatment as those serving the blind.
A "risk" how? The airlines update their weight statistics, they know how much they're carrying. Are you worried about the chance of them having a heart attack disrupting your flight? In that case you should be more worried about elderly people.
Well, then allow me to cheer you up, because it isn't.
The biggest burden on healthcare systems in the developed world is end-of-life care for people who are physically healthy but mentally unwell - a dementia patient might survive for ten or twenty years, requiring round-the-clock care.
Obese people, being much more likely to die relatively quickly while they're relatively young, represent much less of a burden on those healthcare systems than more healthy people do.
My personal opinion: I don't have nothing against dogs but I hate to hear them barking. I know that you can't completely control that but way many owners do not teach manners to their dogs and they are barking all the time.
Now before someone says "what's up with this guy expecting manners from dogs" I actually adopted two dogs last year and without prior experience I educated them really well. Now I'm pretty sure that a messy dog is absolutely the fault of the owner's behavior.
And you're right about the social contract. The damage that irresponsible owners are doing to society far extends the trivial situation of "that dog is making a lot of noise"; that thing easily becomes a "I hope the owner gets it back" and those collective feelings fuel a more hostile society in general.
You are right to some extent. But may I ask what is your dogs' breed? Different breeds have different behavior patterns and some specific to barking, some breeds are just more noisy than others no matter how you trained them. For example, terriers were used to rats, rabbits, and foxes [0]. This means they had to work along underground so that barking was actually a good trait otherwise their owners might not be able to find them when they had some dangerous situation underneath. Barking was an old GPS for their owners. Terriers were specifically selected by breeders to bark loud and frequent[1]. Of course that does not necessary mean a barking terrier is acceptable. They have to be trained but may bark more than other breeds.
I don't know what breed they are because I found them on the street but they look a lot like German shepherds. But yeah ok, "maybe it's the breed". Still, I think that a courteous owner goes a long way.
I don't know if shepherds are specifically prone to barking but I can tell you that my dogs were particularly prone to barking when I found them. They pretty much barked at anything, other people, other dogs, just because they were bored, etc... Ever since I got them I continuously chided them when they barked at inappropriate situations; around 2-3 months following this relatively simple treatment (sometimes as trivial as just yelling NO!) and their noise and anxious behavior has been reduced considerably.
I'm not saying they don't bark anymore, because they do, but when I'm in a situation where they start barking at someone at the street (for instance) my reaction is to immediately try to do something to make them stop and sometimes I even excuse myself with the people involved; I've seen many owners dealing with the same situation in a completely different way, even taking a defiant attitude, like in "you can't do anything, its not illegal for my dog to bark", this attitude is what pisses other people off.
It's not the dog barking, it's the owner not giving a shit; it's like seeing someone throwing trash on the street, the world's not going to end because of a can lying there in the sidewalk but a world where many people act in such manner is a world that's up to no good.
Others may view the barking in a different way than you do and that could explain their different reactions. If a dog is barking out of fear scolding it may be a bad option because 1) you proved them right. They thought it was a bad situation, now you're in a bad mood and they're in trouble. Definitely a bad situation. 2) Barking and growling is a great way for dogs to communicate their discomfort before it escalates. A dog that has learned not to growl or bark will resort to other signals that are less likely to be understood by humans, and then bite.
The other owners may not give a shit, some don't, but they may be intentionally acting like it's no big deal as part of a larger strategy of changing how their dog views certain situations.
> I don't know if shepherds are specifically prone to barking
Yes. Shepherds are especially prone to barking. They were trained to be, well, shepherds. This breed is used to guard sheep, not scare them. So they have to be quite and obedient to their owners.
Retrievers are also quite because they were used to retrieve game for a hunter. Those games may be just hurt and barking may scare them away. So the breeders were specifically select quite and obedient dogs to be retrievers.
It's not about "bad dog" or "good dog", it's "your dog doesn't belong in the grocery store sniffing the lettuce I'm trying to buy", or "your dog doesn't belong in the clothing store shedding hair all over the pants I'm trying to buy".
Neither are things that a "good dog" wouldn't do or a "bad dog" would, they're both natural things that the dog can't help... ie. it's not the dog's fault it's shedding.
The problem is the owner that invites the situation.
It's just plain rude for the owner to think everyone else has to put up with their animal. I love animals, always have (since I was a kid I've never not owned a cat or dog, or both, sometimes multiples of both), but I would never think it sane to force my animal upon others, especially at a store.
> Now I'm pretty sure that a messy dog is absolutely the fault of the owner's behavior.
I don't agree. We had a dog who was absolutely hopeless. We took her to several professional dog trainers and spent many thousands on dog therapy to no avail. Just because you had a good experience with your two dogs doesn't mean that applies to all dogs.
As I said in another comment you can argue about anything for an infinite amount of time. You are saying that my statement is not true because ONE dog (out of many that you apparently had) was messier than others, yeah I could also say that maybe you didn't treat that dog the same way you treat the others or just blatantly call you a liar, that's a lie!
You and I could exchange every kind of imaginable counterargument and nothing valuable would come out of it; the important thing is that people should (or learn to) live in a civilized environment and realize that their rights end where another people's start.
I find it remarkable that you don't see anything strange in drawing a conclusion about hundreds of millions of dogs based on a population of two.
No, this is not about agreeing to disagreeing. Regardless if I'm lying or not you cannot use your anecdotal evidence to affirm a universal statement. You can falsify "no dogs can be educated", but that's it.
I actually feel the same way about kids "acting out" in public. The difference is, if the guardians are attempting to control the situation. If they are, then I am much more tolerant to the disruption. If not, well to be honest, I'm not sure if I'm more upset with the child or the parent at this point.
The problem is that misbehaviour is often attention-seeking. You then have three choices.
1 - give in and give them candy or whatever it is they're screaming for. Shuts them up for the moment, but makes the problem much more likely to recur elsewhere.
2 - ignore them, or rather, pretend that they're not screaming. This is best in the long term, but obviously sucks for the short term. The worst is the sanctimonious looks you get from everybody because you're letting your children scream it out.
3 - punish them. This is just a variation on #1. They wanted attention, and now you're giving it to them. The difference is that it's much less likely to actually stop the screaming.
Of course, the worst of both worlds is starting out with #2 and then giving in to the sanctimonious looks and the screaming and doing #1 or #3.
While applying 1, 2, or 3 you should also work to find and ameliorate the root cause. Are they tired, hungry, bored or over-stimulated? The last two are particularly hard to tell apart. For instance in an airport it could be either (or both!) -- they're bored because they haven't been able to do anything "fun" but over-stimulated because they're shoved into an overwhelming new environment.
That's why shoving a tablet in their face is so effective -- it gives them something to do while simultaneously shutting out the outside world.
Once I had children, my breaking point for getting annoyed with other people's children skyrocketed. Now, I mostly feel bad for the parent.
You're right in that you can usually tell by the parents reaction the type of person they are. My emotions adjust accordingly to that, but I do still hear from people how annoyed they are when a child acts out, regardless of the parents reaction.
You still need to do stuff in life and with children, doing stuff becomes substantially harder. I'd bet a lot of parents with kids who act out don't want to go to the store with them, but simply have to because they don't have better options.
Not just that, but it trains dogs not to bark or growl when they are antagonized or upset by certain behaviour. Normally a bark or growl would function as a warning, but now he has no other way to go than bite without warning.
Now this animal, who was shocked into never using its vocal cords and antagonized until he bit a human or other animal out of desperation, gets put down because he is a danger to society. Job well done lads!
I've seen these used on rescue dogs that frankly have such complex psychological problems that they cannot be untrained to bark. The only other choice is euthanasia. They aren't so strong that the dog can't growl.
The dog also learns that aggressive responses are not so fantastic.
My own dog doesn't have one of these, mainly because we try to be very careful to manage how we respond to his barking. But if we couldn't keep up the late-night bark management, or if we lose control of the barking, I won't think twice about buying one of these. I've seen them used on other dogs and frankly they work just fine and are humane.
No. Shock collars are exactly how dogs get such complex psychological problems that they're abandoned in the first place.
They're not humane, if you force a shock collar on another human it's legally considered a torture device. If the legal system used them it would be cruel and unusual punishment.
Causing unnecessary pain and suffering is not compatible with being humane. It's as simple as that. There are better solutions with fewer side effects for every use case of a shock collar. If not every single use case, the overwhelming majority of them. (edit: I didn't realize you were the one advocating using shock collars on a rescue dog that barks too much. A shock collar isn't even in the right ballpark in that case.)
Dominance and pain based training methods are outdated and based on debunked theories, in the past three decades almost the entire field of animal behavior has moved on.
Ughmmmm no. Try to be getting up 6 times a night to find your dog barking at a hedgehog because one wondered into your garden(and a dog won't stop, if needed it will stand in front of a hedgehog for 12 hours and bark at it). The only other option was to tie the dog down each night,but in my opinion that's more barbaric. After a few nights of getting shocked each time he got even close to the hedgehog, barking at them stopped and the collar has not been used again. It's just a tool,and I have nothing against them.
I don't know why I got downvoted for stating that I would use that product... anyway...
I agree with you and the thing about "now they will bite without warning" is total bs. They somehow fail to see that if an owner cares enough to prevent his dog from barking they will, to a much greater degree, care that its dog will not harm to other people; quite the contrary, the type of guy that says "they're dogs, it's natural for them to bark" is the type of guy that later turns into a "they're dogs, it's natural for them to bite".
After being zapped by one of these myself, I had to tone down my disapproval of them. It was uncomfortable but not particularly painful, similar to a 'handbuzzer' gag gift.
My bigger problem was that it was not very effective at stopping barking.
What each person considers selfish is, unfortunately?, subjective.
Is crossing the street against the light selfish? Yes, you're taking someone else's turn. No, you're just crossing the street.
Is peeing on a toilet seat selfish? Yes, you're ruining for everyone else. No, you don't want to touch that gross seat so you're not lifting it.
The media / culture in the west or at least USA relishes "break the rules" but that is often interpreted by some in ways that some would argue are selfish. Graffiti (is it street art or ruining someone else's property). Trespassing (is it just being harmlessly curious or invading someone's space or privacy). Returning things you used, as in buying a dress, wearing it to a party and returning it for a full refund. (Is it just being frugal or selfish?)
Yeah you can get lost in the details for as much time as you want and you can also justify pretty much every kind of behavior imaginable by artificially constructing a scenario that favors whatever point of view you are trying to defend.
Everything is subjective, I agree, but I think everyone could be mature enough to discern the line between "I can't avoid doing this" and "I'm just being an ass". If most people were honest enough to just think "this is wrong, I'll refrain from doing it" we wouldn't even need laws in the first place.
The problem is not how subjective are the issues at hand, the problem is the attitude some people take when confronted with those issues. You can make extremely detailed laws that are designed to take into account every possible situation that may arise and still have someone study them well enough to discover a flaw and use that as a shield for, well, being an asshole. "Yeah the law says that I can't pee on toilets but I didn't pee on it, I just threw the pee there later from a bag. Gotcha!"
There are much better examples of subjective cultural norms than greggman provided. The notion of personal space, for example, varies significantly between cultures, and there is no significant objective reasons one norm is better than other.
Even among one culture (whatever it means) there are countless of better examples of things that cannot be sorted out in the jerk / non jerk category.
Usually people that work at night, how much noise they can make when they came back home early in the morning? What about people practicing music instruments? Can students party at night if they have neighbors, just once in a year? once in a month? Is it ok to bring a stroller in crowded areas? etc.
I don't think it's possible to give an answer to any of these questions that will get more than 60% agreement in any sufficiently diverse community, even given the full details of the situation.
In the general sense the the USA as a whole tends to value individual freedoms over the collective. It is a individualistic culture. Sometimes I wish that we were a more collective culture. Not much more, but I think there are pros to being more collective than we are because as humans we are social animals.
I don't know if it is just me but I think perhaps we have gotten more individualistic in the past few decades and those questions would illicit different responses 40 years ago. Hitchhiking used to be common but now we are afraid strangers are going to kill us, even though the world is actually safer today. I even admit I am absolutely terrified of random stranger violence, irrationally. I know that if I were to become a victim of violence it would be far more likely to be someone I know who did it and not a random stranger on the street. Most people are not killers or serial rapists or muggers. Yet, I still can't shake the fear.
But you are right, those answers would very much vary between countries.
Those are my thoughts on the matter anyways, for what it is worth. (Probably not much :))
For reference it costs about $25,000 over a period of 6 to 9 months to train a service dog. If you see somebody with a service dog it's because they absolutely need it.
There are waiting lists, background checks, interviews, even the owners themselves are trained. There is nothing in the process of getting a service dog that is taken lightly.
The article specifically made the distinction between service dogs - which are well-trained and, as a result, well-behaved and very seldomly a bother to anyone - and untrained animals that are held only for reasons of mental comfort.
The idea of the article is that, although some people with disabilities benefit from an untrained animal to the point that one wants to prevent others (e.g. landlords) from doing undue harm by not being accommodating at all, uncertainty about these provisions (not the provisions themselves!) are being abused by some egocentric pet owners.
As others have said, ESAs can be any animal type, but business are not legally obligated to accommodate ESAs. Only dogs (and in some limited cases miniature horses) can be service animals in the US.
A service animal may be an ESA, but not all ESAs are service animals. Also, the ADA specifically states that "Dogs whose sole function is to provide comfort or emotional support do not qualify as service animals under the ADA.".
An emotional support animal is NOT a service animal. There's a huge difference. There are not any legal requirements for emotional support animals. A parrot can be considered an emotional support animal. A service animal is a highly trained animal, while an emotional support animal is anything you say it is.
Unlike the Emotional Support Animals, service animals have to undergo a large amount of training and certification in order to be considered as such. This ensures that they are well behaved in situations where animals would not normally be allowed (like airplanes).
This is very unfortunate for those with disabilities that really do need service animals. I'd put the ESA-abusers in the same class of people that use their relative's handicapped parking permit to get a better parking spot.
EDIT: Furthermore, there are only two species of animals that can be recognized as a service animal: dogs and miniature horses. There doesn't seem to be a species restriction on ESAs.
There are a limited number of handicapped spots. Not so with ESA dogs. Though, I'm very very careful to make sure mine isn't a pain in the ass, and not everyone goes to such lengths.
False. Society has a certain amount of patience for people taking their dogs everywhere, it's not unlimited. Not everybody likes dogs, some people have had traumatic experiences, some people are allergic, there are health codes to worry about, etc. The more people take their ESA's around, which inevitably causes problems, the lower that level of patience becomes.
I'm all for ESA advocates getting together and coming up with a system to regulate them and ensure it's low impact, but printing off certificates from the internet isn't going to cut it.
I understand that the analogy is not entirely symmetrical.
That being said, it wouldn't work if everyone exploited this loophole. And I think that the author--as brash as she was--shows how far this can be exploited.
What's to keep someone with an poorly behaving ESA dog from boarding an airplane? Nothing.
I almost never mind as long as they are well-behaved. Just like kids. If your dog or your kid is making noise and stinking up the place, I don't much like it. Otherwise, why would I care? They're cute and funny (dogs moreso than kids), and they have shared human spaces for thousands of years.
I purposely live in places that are pretty lax about stuff like that, and one of the things I liked least about Silicon Valley is how horribly dog-hostile the housing market there is, though once you've got housing, there are, at least a few patio-equipped restaurants and coffee shops that are dog-friendly (not on par with an actual dog-friendly city like Austin, but liveable).
I am not sure if you read the article, but it goes far beyond dogs. It's about people abusing the concept of an emotional service animal. People do it to get their pets to fly free as well as other things. The main portion of the article is about the author seeing how far she can go by claiming random animals are ESA's for her. She used turtles, snakes, pigs, alpacas and a few others successfully.
I am a dog lover. I own one dog and plan to adopt more in the future. But it's pretty ridiculous that people take advantage of this. Not everyone is a dog person, let alone comfortable with the number of animals this women used as ESA pets. It's unfortunate that there are actually people at such a state emotionally where they don't want to leave the house unaccompanied by their pets, but it's not exactly fair for everyone else who now has to potentially put up with their animal.
I think rubber ducks as ESAs would be just as effective and far less annoying :)
There are significant fines for businesses that refuse to accommodate legitimate service animals, so businesses are afraid to question if an alleged service animal is real or fake.
Only dogs can be service animals, but there are limited exceptions for miniature horses. Business owners can ask 2 questions: "Is that dog a service animal required because of a disability?", and "What tasks has the dog been trained to help you with?". If the answer to the first one is no or the answer to the 2nd one is none, then you can refuse to accommodate it. Also, if the only answer to the first one is that it provides emotional support, then by definition it is not a service dog according to the ADA. They state, "Dogs whose sole function is to provide comfort or emotional support do not qualify as service animals under the ADA."
Otherwise, if the dog isn't housebroken or the owner can't control the dog's behavior, then you can kick them out but you have to allow the customer access to your services without the dog.
I did. I just haven't seen it. Ever. I've seen dogs. Nothing else. I used to see birds and snakes and big lizards a lot when I lived in Houston 15 years ago, but not really anywhere since (except in Venice Beach), and that obviously wasn't because of this ESA thing. It may have been a factor of who I was hanging out with and things I was doing.
I'm not endorsing people abusing the system...I'm endorsing chilling out about dogs in "human" spaces. I understand there are valid concerns. Some people are allergic, and that's a thing we should try to be respectful of, within reason (i.e. if someone is allergic and says so, maybe move them or the animal to another location within the space). Some dogs are poorly behaved. Owners should be expected to be responsible for inappropriate behavior.
Anyway, my point was mostly that no one bats an eye at children being everywhere humans go, even though children can be unruly, disruptive, destructive, smelly, and dangerous, animals too. I like dogs. I want to live in a world where dogs are treated with reasonable levels of respect and aren't excluded unnecessarily from their families lives. (Humans have this really weird/unique relationship with dogs. They need us in ways that no other animal does. Whether it was ethical to breed that need into them over thousands of generations is not a useful debate to have, since we can't undo it...but, I believe that comes with some kind of responsibility.)
I think at the end of the day it should be about discretion. A store should be able to say "oh sure, Fido is awesome" and "uh, no, he ate my childs arm last time, fuck off Marty" without any worries. Banning animals in places that serve food city wide is quite silly. Let the stores set their own rules. I'd love a coworking cafe that charged by the hour and let my dog run around.
I agree completely! Widespread ban is silly, but so is a certificate that allows people to basically bring their animals where ever they want.
I have been to plenty of stores and restaurants that are dog friendly(some go so far as to have water bowls and treats around the establishment for them). It's neat and people going there know exactly what they are getting into. If I was at a movie theater and someone has a dog that freaks the fuck out every time there is ambient animal noise in a scene then I am not going to be happy. I have no expectations of any animals being at my local AMC theater, I don't see why a $200 dollar certificate allows that.
Agree. Here in Japan you even have restaurants and cafes where pets are actually welcome and encouraged. This is a good place to go spend time if you like animals.
I mostly disagree, and generally like places that aren't hung up on rules that (in this case) don't really make a difference.
Who cares if the person next to me at dinner has a pet snake? I know a guy who takes his pet parrot to the grocery store and the hardware store. It's a hoot. I took my former dog, an exceptionally mellow and adaptable doxie mix, on a plane flight (about 10 years ago) to see my parents. The passengers were generally glad for the diversion.
> Who cares if the person next to me at dinner has a pet snake?
I do
A pet parrot can be a death treat to an elderly. Psittacosis kills a few each year, specially old people and children.
Pet reptiles are common reservoirs for Salmonella. You can be poisoned for Salmonella and when this bacteria enter a kitchen can be difficult to erradicate. A restaurant can be closed for this, so is a very abuse-prone field. For instance a dishonest owner of another restaurant only needs to pay an actor and his snake to move to some rival restaurant and sip his coffe each afternoon 7days for 3, 6 months or the time necessary to nuke it. All with the happy help and merry cooperation of this org.
A girl friend of mine had your father sit in a wheelchair for the rest of his life for a salmonella poisoning. He lost their job, their mobility, and their former life. Not, is not funny at all.
Some people are very allergenic to some pets, also. Other are phobic or just don't like pets. Is unfair to them to force to be near an animal when they were expecting instead a safe only-humans/dogs allowed area. I could also easily imagine a call for troubles if you put a big pink pig pet farting in a plane full of people of jew or muslim origin.
Quite a few people would care. Personally I'm uncomfortable with most animals and would hate to be stuck on a plane with one nearby. If I knew an airline let animals on I'd definitely consider flying with someone else.
My girlfriend is extremely allergic to animals and if someone took a dog onto an airplane just for the hell of it she would suffer for hours. There are some people who can't physically be around animals for extended periods of time without being drugged up on a cocktail of antihistamines.
Confession time. I have an Emotional Support Dog that flies with me for free. The certificate cost $250 per year (or rather, the airlines require a prescription letter dated within 1 year of your flight). I obtained it without lying. I answered every questions honestly, though I am capable of flying without my dog. Yes, I have anxiety, like any person. Yes, my dog makes me feel better, like (I assume) anyone with a dog. Boom, certificate.
Technically this means I can bring my dog literally anywhere, but I only use it for flying. When on the train, the dog resides in a backpack that meets the "carrier" qualification. I don't take her in restaurants or movie theaters like a huge douche.
Why do I think it's OK? Well, it's a long list. First, the airlines will not allow dogs over 17 pounds as carry-on, even in a carrier. They won't let you buy an additional seat for the dog, even in a carrier. 18lbs = under the plane. 2 hours early, dog fucking terrified, so you probably have to Benadryl the pup, and they've been known to freeze to death under there. Nope Nope Nope.
This all makes no sense. If I buy a second seat, the size of the dog should not matter. Tiny dog in carrier is just as loud as big dog in carrier.
Toddlers fly for free and scream like fucking maniacs. 5 year olds buy a seat and scream and play iPad games on full volume.
My dog sits underneath the seat in front of me and doesn't move. I've had a 2 hour flight where people in my row did not know a dog was on the plane until we got off.
My dog's extremely well trained. She doesn't have breakfast on flight days, and I feed her a few ice cubes so she isn't crazy thirsty the whole trip. No chance of a mid-aisle poop, any more so than the old lady two rows up might. She doesn't bark, etc.
I do get that it's hard to have rules such as "your dog can fly with you if they aren't a huge fucking pain".
Two years ago tons of dogs were flying for free. Now you have to pay an extra $50 to have your doctor answer calls from the airline to confirm, and it's back down to where I rarely see another dog in the airport.
|Technically this means I can bring my dog literally anywhere
Doesn't the article specifically state the law only allows keeping an ESA in a residence that doesn't otherwise allow animals, and flying with them for free? The author explicitly states emotional support animals do not have the same rights as service animals, and you cannot bring your dog anywhere. People are just lead to believe so.
A toddler won't make 5% of the population sick when in an enclosed air system like a plane, some to the point of needing an adrenaline injection or they will die of anaphylactic shock, or a beta antagonist inhaler for an asthmatic attack (which can also be lethal, although less often than anaphylaxis since it can usually be managed with an inhaler). The rules are not there for pain in the butt. They are there to protect a lot of other people.
> Why do I think it's OK? Well, it's a long list. First, the airlines will not allow dogs over 17 pounds as carry-on, even in a carrier. They won't let you buy an additional seat for the dog, even in a carrier. 18lbs = under the plane. 2 hours early, dog fucking terrified, so you probably have to Benadryl the pup, and they've been known to freeze to death under there. Nope Nope Nope.
Have you considered getting a dog sitter, or pet hotel?
Exactly. Shouldn't we prioritise humans? Fear of dogs isn't exactly an uncommon thing. Neither are allergies (and we got rid of peanuts on planes for those people). I have a dog, which I have no fear of, but walking down the street will usually cross if I see a large dog coming (even on a leash). It's irrational but if I was on a plane and there was a dog somewhere on board I would be on edge the entire flight unable to concentrate on anything but where the dog was. If you don't wan't your dog kept in the planes hold how about not bringing it with you? There are plenty of options available - pet hotels, sitters, family, friends. To be clear I have no problem with guide dogs etc. as they are expertly trained but people lying to get their pets onboard is disrespectful.
The point is - many people have very poorly behaved animals. Even if the animal was otherwise well behaved, bringing an animal on a plane is a whole nuther matter.
The people who bring out their animals in inappropriate places and allow them to do inappropriate things ruin it for everyone. Otherwise dogs wouldn't be a big issue.
Some people are abusing the law without taking other peoples considerations into account.
The key point here is that the government forces businesses to accommodate Emotional Support Animals through the Fair Housing Act, the Air Carrier Access Act and the Americans with Disability Act. This is not an issue of modern society not being able to control assholes. It is a matter of government legislation intended to protect the rights of disabled people, being (allegedly) misused. The difficulty in drawing this line directly brings into question whether the government should be forcing businesses to accommodate people with disabilities.
IMO the difficulty in drawing the line suggests that the existing laws aren't quite there yet and some refinement is probably needed. I'm sure that sounds like a really boring, milquetoast opinion to a lot of people but that makes a lot more sense to me than using ambiguous or annoying ESA laws as Exhibit A for why the government shouldn't be allowed to force businesses to accommodate the disabled.
Are you really disagreeing with me? I simply read an article, and noted that the real issue was the government intervention, not private businesses inability to make good judgments, or individuals lack of restraint in assholish behavior. I didn't list this as "Exhibit A" I just noted that if we're talking about this article, this is the main issue.
The problem with a "screw the government intervention" mindset is that wheelchair bound people make up a significant minority, so I won't say no one, but a vanishingly small number of businesses would care if they moved to a non-ADA compliant building. To be a bit flip, playhouses and theaters with their generally elderly patrons, and wheelchair stores are the only ones I can think of. So yes, this is a place that government intervention is necessary. Specifically, if you look at many old buildings built pre-ADA (1990) you'll find a disturbing lack of accessibility.
It's worth discussing whether the government should ban dogs from businesses that serve food. And it's worth discussing whether the regulations which essentially prevent businesses from validating a service animals papers (so to speak) should be relaxed. However, it seems that it's really a lack of understanding of the law when it comes to the difference between a trained service animal and a companion animal, not horrible government intervention.
> The key point here is that the government forces businesses to accommodate Emotional Support Animals through the Fair Housing Act, the Air Carrier Access Act and the Americans with Disability Act
I thought the key point here is that the government _doesn't_ force people to accommodate Emotional Support Animals at all, but many businesses don't know the difference between a Service Animal and an ESA.
Dog owner and cat owner here (I love them!) but my question is, why do we needs pets at all? Is it right to put a bird in a cage or a cat in a small apt or having a dog and bring him out just 3 times a day? Why we are so selfish to prevent birds from flying or cats from hunting? Should we rethink in general about the pet in general?
Certainly, yes. Most people don't treat their pets properly.
If you have a dog you should have it with you all the time; they're pack animals and get anxious and neurotic when left alone. This means there are very few lifestyles that lend themselves to dog ownership. Farmers tend to make great dog owners, because the dog is fully integrated with the lifestyle.
The social problem is that a lot of pet owners conflate the needs of their pet with their own personal rights. "I own a dog," and "Dogs need to be with their owners," therefore "I should be able to take my dog with me everywhere." No, you should have to stay with your dog in an appropriate environment. If you don't live in such an environment, don't own a dog.
Another example of well-intentioned laws (the ADA and associated acts, in this case) having unfortunate semi-predictable side effects.
When you muddy the legal waters, you make it very difficult for your average Joe, who has no legal training, to protect themselves from legal abuses like those demonstrated in the article.
You're not going to stand up to assholes if you're afraid you might get sued for discrimination.
I look at this from a slightly different perspective... Why shouldn't animals (mainly dogs, really) be allowed in many of these places, assuming they are well behaved?
When I lived in the UK, you would often see a dog or two in pubs or outside areas of restaurants. Even occasionally in the grocery store (they were smaller ones, though, and always in a cart). There was never any commotion over them.
In Norway, dogs aren't even allowed in the outdoor area of restaurants unless the waiters are willing to look the other way. The same goes for pharmacies and grocery stores (some grocery stores look the other way if you are carrying the dog). The explanation is always that the Norwegian food authority (which also has jurisdiction over pets, for some odd reason) bans them because people might have allergies.
I think Norway is an example of taking things way too far. Why not allow the shop owners to decide for themselves whether they are more interested in catering to dog owners or people who might be allergic? People with allergies have to worry no matter what, because a service dog is still allowed in, so they have no guarantee of not encountering a dog, and if they have a severe allergy, the dog hair on my clothes could be enough to set off an allergy attack (if it isn't, my dog probably won't cause the person any problems unless she jumps on them, which I always do my best to prevent).
In the end, people need to stop abusing the system, but the system needs to be relaxed to allow more flexibility.
Unfortunately it seems that, especially in US, most problems end up an "us vs them" problem. People pick sides and do whatever it takes to win battles.
For example I'm baffled to know that in US, some "pet forbidden" apartment buildings exist. Come on, people not allowed to have pets at their own house??
Here in the UK, in general (I don't know about the US), renting a property allows you the right to just about live there, grudgingly, and it is definitely NOT your house or home.
This is true more of the lower end of the market than the higher.
Although a lot of listings say "no pets allowed" in the UK, many will let you have a pet if you ask (if it's a large pet they're likely to ask for a higher deposit fee, but that seems fair enough).
>For example I'm baffled to know that in US, some "pet forbidden" apartment buildings exist. Come on, people not allowed to have pets at their own house??
I don't think it is us vs them.
A few bad apples ruin the bunch.
There are people who just let their pets destroy their apartment because they can't be bothered to train them or even clean up after them. Landlords take the stance of that being an unnecessary risk to deal with potential propery destruction so they just say no pets because they perceive it as the less risky route.
In Germany landlords are allowed to forbid pets, but they can't do anything about "small animals" such as cats or rodents unless they cause trouble (e.g. via excessive smell or noise).
Interesting, but at the end of the article they clarify that this is only about small dogs (which makes sense as the original term for the kind of pets that can't be forbidden was "Kleintiere", i.e. small animals).
tl;dr:
Emotional-support animal (E.S.A.) are not allowed in places they shouldn't be. Exceptions are:
>The rights of anyone who has such an animal are laid out in two laws. The Fair Housing Act says that you and your E.S.A. can live in housing that prohibits pets. The Air Carrier Access Act entitles you to fly with your E.S.A. at no extra charge, although airlines typically require the animal to stay on your lap or under the seat—this rules out emotional-support rhinoceroses. Both acts stipulate that you must have a corroborating letter from a health professional.
So anywhere else these animals are it is not legal. It is different for service dogs that are trained for a specific purpose (i.e. blind people's dog)
> They defend the practice by saying [...] that Europeans gladly accept dogs everywhere.
I'd love to see them trying it in Europe :)
However, here in the US I've never seen animals in uncommon places, is it really a trend ?
Does that bother anyone else? If you are petrified of dogs, you will (reasonably) pick housing that prohibits pets. Then someone comes in with an ESA dog?
Somewhere someone mentioned that normal pets are not allowed on planes unless you pay more but if you get your pet labeled emotional support then its free AND they mentioned getting that classification is easy and people abuse it to get a break...
I was recently on a flight from Chicago to Seattle with a chihuahua on someone's lap a few rows in front of me that yapped in long stretches for the entire flight. Far, far worse than any child screaming.
Yup, but they are allowed regardless. Only difference is with an ESA certificate the airline didn't make $125. A 'pain in the ass' tax that's levied on noisy people, dogs, and children and paid in a sliding scale to the people around them would be great.
> Some people are allergic to some type of animals though, how do you handle that?
The same way people allergic to other things handle it. They do their best to avoid it and they keep an epi-pen on themselves in case they're accidentally exposed.
I was once at the Los Angeles airport, and a fellow passenger walked up to the counter and told the person there that they have an airborne peanut allergy, and to please announce that nobody in the concourse could eat nuts. The person behind the counter did so, but realistically, this did very little. Between the vast majority of people ignoring most announcements, and the literally thousands of people per hour coming and going from other areas in the airport and planes, there was no way you could keep everyone in the area from eating peanuts. It's on the person with the allergy to make sure they can safely go wherever they're going. You can't expect the rest of the world to magically know, or comply with procedures for your particular issues.
Yes its basically a scam with people taking advantage... As the saying goes the road to hell is paved with good intentions... I think flyertalk has people complaining about the ease with which you can get the cert
It's a per seat thing. It's not like someone in dire need has no room for their animal becomes mine is under my seat! Also, I have a hypo-allegenic dog, but they'll reseat complainers. Usually though I have the opposite issue. Everyone wants to touch the dog etc.
I see. But the permission is granted because the restaurant's staff is afraid to break the law.
They piss off some of their customers and probably loose some profits.
Is it legal for places like Walmart (or Whole Foods as the authors mention) where food is served? The trained dog exception is understandable but animals in general are known to convey diseases, I'm surpised that these places are not legally required to forbid any other animals.
EDIT:
Section 114259.5 of the California Retail Food Code says that "live animals may not be allowed in a food facility." But it makes exceptions not just for service dogs but for "pets in the common dining areas of restricted food service facilities at times other than during meals."
As someone with both allergies and a child with life-threatening allergies, I have noticed this trend and find it disturbing. There are stores I cannot go to anymore because of this sh*t. That's about 5% of the population and rising.
I hate the now common occurance of the store and office dog, which is always a yapping tiny viscious ball of fur that immediately runs at you barking when you walk in. Leave precious at home so I can negotiate a sale without the sound of endless barking drowning out our conversation.
Get a big fat store kitty and buddy will lie in the window all day quietly if you must surround yourself in animals.
I also didn't realize how much people from the middle east despise dogs, there's stores some of my Kuwaiti and Saudi friends won't go into because theres a dog running around, and they consider dogs unclean barn animals. They won't even go into a coffee shop if somebody is in the line with a dog as they expect that place is unhygienic.
I found the interview at the bottom of that article completely surreal. A couple of talking heads applying reason to question of whether the world has enough people or not (and apparently deciding that it doesn't have enough), when all they needed to do was buy a plane ticket to Bangladesh.
> when all they needed to do was buy a plane ticket to Bangladesh.
As someone from Bangladesh, I have to say it's not quite so simple. Does the country need more people in general? No. Does it need more more parents to spend the time, money, and energy it takes to raise highly-educated kids that are going to be the backbone of the economy in a couple of decades, and to do that in Bangladesh instead of moving abroad? Absolutely!
>1.86 babies, well below the 2.1 needed for a stable population
Should it not be 3 babies or over? Maybe my lack of statics knowledge is my problem.
But if two parents have two kids that's zero population growth if they have three kids that means they've replaced themselves plus added one more person to create population growth.
"stable" here means zero population growth over the long term, which actually requires a little above 2 per couple to account for people who die before being old enough to parent children. 2.1 is the common approximation for that.
But people live after they reproduce. Having 2 children, and every 2 in the next generation have 2 more, etc, means population continues to grow. A steady state is reached, but as lifespan increases so does population. The obvious limit is, if lifespan is infinite, then 0 children is the only number that permits a stable population.
The average human lifespan is a relatively fixed sized buffer. Since everyone who is born eventually dies, input matches output, and there's no population increase other than the average lifespan (and thus the buffer size) increasing.
Just made an account to reply. I have absolutely nothing against dogs or other pets whatsoever. Sometimes I expect to be sitting in the library or in a cafe, usually a confined place, for a while. To do some work or chat with a friend etc. The issue is, I am extremely allergic against dogs (only horses are worse but I hope nobody will bring a horse into my go-to cafe).
So now somebody enters with their dog, lets it run around freely (!) and I have nowhere to go. Dogs are about the only things that reliably induce allergic asthma in me if exposure time is > 1 hour. So thankfully that rarely happens. But I get immediate massive hayfever symptoms. Sneezing 8 times in a row, runny nose like there is no tomorrow, itchy eyes, all that jazz.
I find it irresponsible of people to bring their pets into confined public spaces such as cafes and even more so of the owners to allow it. I like dogs a lot, sadly I cannot own one. But please don't bring it into a place like that for more than a few minutes. That's just my perspective.
Same reason I hate subway musicians btw. I mean the one inside the trains. You can't get away from them. You are forced to listen to them. Playing on the street? Ok with me, I can keep walking. But doing it in the train is rude beyond anything and I don understand why people put up with it.
If so many animal companions visit places where they weren't allowed before, and the fabric of the society shows no signs of collapse, maybe the problem is not "cheating" but overabundance of restrictions? Maybe people are afraid of other people's pets out of ignorance and lifting the veil of ignorance is a good thing? There are, of course, bad apples - as there are among people. In a restaurant I'd be more worried about a waiter not washing their hands after visiting bathroom (the fact that there are placards saying they ABSOLUTELY MUST DO IT everywhere is kind of unnerving - if they insist on it so much is it the case that one reminder at the start of the employment is not enough?) than about the quiet dog under the table on the other end of the room.
There are also things like poorly trained dog doing "what the dogs do" in the airplane, and the owner not thinking about dog's needs on a 5-hour flight. There are also sanitary and other concerns - e.g. in some places, it is clearly not appropriate to come with animals (most of these places, though, are not exactly open to public either). But I see no problem for a well-behaved dog (or other like animal, of course bengal tigers require an exception here) to accompany its owner to a restaurant or similar establishment - provided they don't smell offensively, shed, make loud noise or otherwise disturb people. Of course, the responsibility should be on the owner and if the companion pet misbehaves or makes trouble, they both should be out, but as a consequence of a problem, not as a pre-determined conclusion.
Our family has pets and I have witnessed how many establishments view pets negatively - e.g. renting with a pet is a constant problem since many landlords, both private and corporate, want nothing to do with it. I understand why it may be (bad apples) but in my case it was just ignorance and refusal to consider even the possibility that it would be OK.
So, I personally take an issue with the author conclusion that the only sensible thing for a person with a pet is to "get lost". I think most people she encountered actually did the sensible thing and accommodated their fellow human being and her companion, however weird it may seem. And I'm sure it didn't require any extraordinary effort, extraordinary cost or major inconvenience - just being ready to tolerate something that is a bit unusual.
I agree. I mean I am assuming your referring to my right to runa private business and not allow animals on my property if I don't want them there. Yes? That's the right to which you were referring? Ok good.
I do not dispute the right of private business to not allow any animal, human, plant, bacteria, archaea or space alien on their private properties. However, these rights are routinely infringed right now, so if you want to stand for them, please stand for them without exceptions. I.e. if the owner is the sole authority in determining who gets into their property, they can refuse anybody for any reason whatsoever, and no regulation or policy can stand in the way, that should be the case and all regulation concerning any such limitations should be removed. That's fine, consistent approach which has my full sympathy.
On the other hand, if you allow exceptions, such as different handling of "public places", even privately owned, if you accept regulation that limits the exclusive authority of the owner to exclude anybody they wish for any reason, then you have to be consistent and have some rules that would guide such regulation, and then what would be your reason to exclude people with (well-behaved) animals accompanying them, not infringing on anybody? "I don't like them, and that's enough" wouldn't cut it anymore - not unless you agree to go all the way. I would prefer the former approach, but it's not the world we live in now, so either we strive for that world, or we go with one we have now, but we can't do both at once.
Also, regardless of that, I think it is important for people to be a bit more accommodating to each other even if nobody forces you to. Let's assume you have full right to kick out every person with a dog out of your place of business. Why should you? Do they make any trouble? Every one of them, always? If not, why would you assume they are troublesome before any sign of trouble appears? Why not instead show some kindness and politeness and give people and dogs a chance to be good? If they don't, you can always kick them out later (ok, on the plane you can't but that's rather exceptional situation, in most situations resolution is very easy).
>if the owner is the sole authority in determining who gets into their property, they can refuse anybody for any reason whatsoever, and no regulation or policy can stand in the way
Err... this didn't work out too well in the past, which is why now I can't put up a sign in my store that says "No Mexicans." Or as a landlord I cant say "I only rent to whites." These regulations didn't arise out of nowhere...
I'm not sure what the rest of your post is about. Other than food establishments it is generally the owner's choice to allow animals ot not. Most people just don't allow animals. You can bring your dog to PetsMart.
It's not, nor should it be, all or nothing. The default state is that you can allow or not allow whoever or whatever you want. However there are a list of classes that protected. Race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, and a handful more [1]. Pets are not, and again should not be, a protected class.
Why choice of religion can be protected but choice of companionship can not be? If one can define protected classes, why pet owners can't be protected? In fact, ESA is doing just that - and the only claim of the article is that it's too easy to get into the class. But why should it be hard?
Anything can be protected. It's just a law. Protecting a class restricts the rights of other people. We tend to prefer having more freedom and less restriction. Therefore a law that limits freedom should only be passed after carefully considering if it's worth it or not. Protecting people based on th color of their skin? Worth it. Protecting someone's right to go anywhere they want with their smelly pet? Not worth it.
They can be. They aren't because no US law has been passed to protect them. It hasn't because pets don't belong everywhere nobody wants businesses to not be able to tell someone to leave because their dog won't stop barking.
>But why should it be hard?
Because these people are abusing a law designed to protect disabled people because they can't excersize enough common sense and common curiosity to know what is appropriate and what is not. People who lack such common sense are surely more likely to have misbehaving animals. If everyone made rational choices with their well behaved animals then dogs wouldn't even be banned in the first place.
You want your emotional support animal to be able to go everywhere with you? Fine. I have no problem with that as long as you get the animal (and you) trained as much as ever other disability dog.
Why shouldn't pets be a protected class? Because pets are not people, for one, and protected class refers to a class of people.
Secondly, making something a protected class involves taking some freedom away from another group of people. It is a balancing act.
Most people don't think you have the "right" to bring your misbehaving dog everywhere you go. Everywhere, no matter if it is appropriate or not. If most people did, it is possible pet owners would be made a protected class in US law.
Family status is a protected class for housing. I can't say "I only rent to families without children" but I can ban children from my restaurant. It isn't all or nothing. Probably because kids can misbehave and the type of person who has a misbehaving child probably also is the one taking their child to places inappropriate for children.
I'm well aware of the term as it's used in the United States. I was asking why you think the list of legally protected classes should not include pets.
> Why shouldn't pets be a protected class? Because pets are not people, for one, and protected class refers to a class of people.
Well, what we're talking about is pet ownership by humans as the protected class. I don't think anyone was thinking of forcing employers to not discriminate again non-human animals.
> Most people don't think you have the "right" to bring your misbehaving dog everywhere you go.
Perhaps, but I suspect most people who bring their misbehaving dogs everywhere do think they have the right. If your argument is that anything which the majority of the population believe should be a protected, should indeed be a legally protected class, that's a reasonable proposition, but I think you'd find the list of legally protected classes would be a lot different than it is today.
The word "rights" evokes messy normative claims. I prefer a more positive approach, and it's clear that a large portion of people would vastly prefer, all else being equal, to minimize their interaction in public places with strangers' animals.
How large and how legitimate is their claim? Maybe it's just a product of irrational fear and ignorance, and knowing more about animal behavior and training they would be able to overcome their irrational revulsion and be content with animal presence? I don't see any rational reason to mind somebody having a dog or a turtle in my presence. Of course, there are can be religious etc. objections - but I don't think anybody would insist on going into a mosque or a synagogue or a kosher restaurant with a pig. At least if they try there would be completely reasonable to refuse them. But absent such matters, and other problems like obvious disturbing behavior (noise, smell, etc.) - why not? Why would you even call it "interaction" - after all, if you go on a bus with 50 strangers, you don't really "interact" with them. Why being in the same room with a dog be "interacting"?
>Maybe it's just a product of irrational fear and ignorance
Hardly.
One - liability. Your insurance may prevent you from allowing dogs. Or may up your premiums.
Two - risk. Is there a risk letting a pet in? Yea. The risk it will bite, be loud, shit/piss on the floor, or annoy other customers or carry disease. Many businesses feel this is an unnecessary risk with not much benefit.
Very few people are irrationally fearful of animals. Businesses are just risk adverse. Theres can be a lot of cost and not much benefit.
>But absent such matters, and other problems like obvious disturbing behavior
People don't bother training their dogs or using common sense and curiosity. If they did this wouldn't be an issue, dogs could just come and go in appropriate places. Since people won't do that we have the majority of businesses who don't care to have them on the premises.
Ever heard of the expression "this is why we can't have nice things?"
But you are 100% free to go open up your own non food establishment and invite all the animals you want in.
We're back to normative with the word "legitimate." I can provide reasons why I or someone else might have certain preferences, but I'm not up to the task of proclaiming which reasons are "legitimate."
OK, fine, but if we talk about pure preference, I don't see why preference not to be in the same room as a dog is better than preference to have a dog around. I.e. if somebody say "but your dog can bite me", we can talk about it and I can alleviate their concerns and maybe we'll arrive to agreement that would be ok with us both. But if somebody just says "I hate dogs and won't tolerate the sight of them!" then there's no way to go anywhere with that, and then I would question why their hate has to have more weight than my preference for canine companionship. Because the article and some other people sound like the preference is a given, but I question - why is that?
> I don't see why preference not to be in the same room as a dog is better than preference to have a dog around.
I also don't see why it's "better" in some objective or universal sense. A "preference" is already a feeling that one thing is better than another, so it's weird to talk about one preference being better than another, at least without some overarching goal like maximizing equality or maximizing utility.
Most interesting. I know a fellow who works in retail, and has done so for many years. I remember from a brief bit of conversation a couple of years ago that he must have been unclear on the distinction between service animals and emotional support animals.
To look at this from the perspective of animal owners: animals are not "pets" to them, they're family. To deny them bringing a dog in an airplane is like denying them bringing a baby in a airplane.
That argument cannot be randomly disregarded because it is a valid one. Dogs bark, babies cry. Dogs are unhygenic, and babies are little balls of filth.
Why should a dog fly in cargo because you don't like a dog inside the airplane? I don't like babies, does that mean we should put babies in a crate in the cargo section?
>> "To look at this from the perspective of animal owners: animals are not "pets" to them, they're family. To deny them bringing a dog in an airplane is like denying them bringing a baby in a airplane."
I say this as a dog owner who understands the love for a pet and how devastated I would be were anything to happen to her. Those people need help. Pets aren't humans. There is no comparison with a human baby whatsoever. People who think the two are equal are emotionally stunted.
Did you read the paper? Because the paper doesn't contradict the claims that "Pets != humans".
The argument that the paper made, and I quote "I argue that we should drop the belief in the equal value of human life, replacing it with a graduated view that applies to animals as well as to humans.", emphasize the first half of the sentence (sidenote: the claim shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that know about Singer's utilitarian stance, he's super consistent in being an utilitarian :-) ). He isn't saying that pets is equal to human in moral status, he's saying that the difference shouldn't be explained just by species.
I felt that the context of the claim "Pets != humans" meant that the commenter was claiming more than just the bare bones of that statement.
I interpreted my parent comment as dismissing the grandparent comment by saying that pets are not in the same 'moral class' as humans, without further justification.
It was this (probably imaginary, I now realise) distinction that I was trying to provide an alternative point of view for.
Awhile back I was chatting with one of my friends who was working security at the local Whole Foods, when a woman walked by the produce section literally dragging her defecating dog through a pile of its own crap.
This is why pets aren't allowed in grocery stores. Yesterday, I counted 5 dogs inside another local grocery store. Some of them may have been legitimate emotional support dogs (although none of them appeared to be service dogs), but surely the others were just people behaving badly.
Exactly. If I go to the local tabac/bar/newsstand and proclaim that I need an emotional support animal, I'd be laughed out of the country. Or, more likely, they'd pour me a Pastis and tell me to find a woman.
Addressing the issues directly is often challenging. That is my guess on why we allow degenerate behavior to impose costs on others until it reaches epidemic proportions when we finally attempt to address it.
It also encourages people to isolate themselves in enclaves where people that share certain expectations of behavior can shut out others and deal with those that are at least somewhat considerate of whatever behaviors the group cares about.
Allowing the rudest people to abuse society degrades the public square and tears at the benefits that can strengthen the social contract. Sadly it seems to be a pretty dominate trait in our society these last few decades and it seems likely to just keep getting worse. Hopefully I am wrong.